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St Mary,
Ellingham

We
came here through the narrowest of lanes. They
spread like a lattice on the north bank of the
Waveney, and you leave the busy Bungay road near
the former Anglo-catholic shrine church of
Shipmeadow in Suffolk, and suddenly you are lost
to sight. It is like entering Norfolk through the
back door. The area reminded me of bandit
country, the borderlands between the Republic of
Ireland and the British North in the 1980s, as if
only the main roads would have customs posts, and
these back lanes were left to farmers, smugglers
and terrorists. Obviously, I was rather less
concerned about what we might meet around the
next corner, unless it was a tractor, and we
would need to reverse all the way back into
Suffolk.

St Mary appears rather prim from the
north, but you come around to the south side and
the church expands, as if relaxing. There is a
big, blockish south aisle, and a curious stair
turret to the tower, presumably added in the 19th
Century.

This
church is not terribly well-known, unlike the church of
St James in the distant parish of Great Ellingham off in
the west of the county. This is partly because the church
is kept locked. There is a keyholder, a very nice man,
but he lived so far off and in such a convoluted route
that in the end he gave up trying to give me directions
and brought the key to the church instead.

St Mary is
a long, handsome church inside, obviously well-kept and
well-used, and the white walls and light box pews give it
an air of light and space. This is fortunate, because it
offsets an excellent range of stained glass from the late
19th and early 20th centuries. Best of all are the
windows on the north side of the nave. They get more
recent as you head westwards. A wonderful Annunciation
scene is accompanied by a harvest window depicting an
angel, and another of Christ the Good Shepherd, two
subjects which must have had a real resonance in such a
remote, rural parish. They are the work of Reginald Bell.
The sower stands with Ellingham church behind him. At
Colne Engaine in the lanes of north Essex you can see
exactly the same window, but with Colne Engaine church in
it!

More
curious, the older window remembering a vicar's wife,
Amelia Harriet Smith, shows her as Mary at Bethany
sitting at the feet of Christ, and then as one of the
mothers allowing their children to come unto Christ.
There is a good Kempe window of the Adoration of the
Magi, and a Ward & Hughes scene of the story of Naomi
and Ruth.

There's
something very odd about the arrangement of the nave and
aisle. At one time there were two aisles, or possibly a
north aisle predating the south aisle, because in the
north wall there are remains of the arcade. This must
have been very early, probably 13th century, because on
the central remnant there is a bishop's head and
upside-down dragon in the style of the period.

Even
odder is the south arcade. It extends the full
length of the church, and the two most easterly
bays in the nave were rebuilt to match that in
the chancel. Curiously, the stone that remembers
this on the south side of the arcade has a
misplaced apostrophe, something we tend to think
of as a modern disease. Even odder, the older
part of the arcade is simply cut in the wall. Is
it possible that at one time a solid wall
separated the western part of the nave from its
aisle?

At first sight, there are two World
War One rolls of honour hanging on the south
arcade. In fact, one of them is for the workers
of W. D. &
A. E. Walker Ltd. Jonathan Neville's Norfolk
Mills site
tells us that they ran the wherry boats which
carried goods up and down the Waveney, and also
owned the mill and maltings we had passed to get
to the church. They were obviously the largest
local employer. Shortly after the First World
War, the navigation rights and boats were sold to
the brewer Watney, Combe, Reid & Co, while
after the Second World War the mill was bought by
Hovis. All are done with today: the mill closed
in 1967, and boats no longer bring food up and
down the river. Instead, articulated lorries
thunder through the night up and down the dual
carriageways cut across old East Anglia. Sic
transit gloria mundi.